Z-Minus Box Set [Books 1-3]

by Perrin Briar

  There was a tortured squeak of wood in the entrance hall. Chris and George exchanged a look. George edged toward the doorway and put his head around it. He froze.

  “Chris,” George said.

  “Yeah?”

  “I think we have company.”

  A figure entered the room with a gun in George’s face. George followed it like he was attached to it with a piece of string. The man with the gun had snow white hair and watery blue eyes. He squinted, and the thick wrinkles around his eyes curled like sweet wrappers.

  “What are you doing in my house?” he said.

  Chris held up his hands.

  “We’re just here to take a rest, that’s all,” he said. “We’ll leave right now.”

  The old man gestured to Maisie with his gun.

  “What’s her story?” he said.

  “She’s not feeling well,” Chris said. “It’s nothing.”

  The old man looked her over and settled on the bandages on her shoulder.

  “I thought you said you weren’t dangerous?” he said. “She’s been bitten.”

  “She still has time. And there’s a cure. We’re heading to it right now in fact.”

  “There’s no cure,” the old man said with a sneer. “The only cure’s the one I got in my hands right now.”

  “There is a cure,” Chris said, taking a step forward, putting himself between Maisie and the gun. “It’s in London. We’re going to take her to it.”

  “You’re a fool if you think you can get to London. Haven’t you seen the zombie barrier? You’ll never get through it. They’re like that all around London, like a ring of death.”

  “We will get through. If you don’t shoot us.”

  There was a loud screeching noise outside like metal bending beyond its limit. The man moved to the window and pulled the curtain aside. He looked toward the forest surrounding the house.

  “You led them here?” he said, eyes wide. “You led them here to my home?”

  George dashed forward, seizing the gun in his large hands. He pushed the barrel up at the ceiling. Maisie screamed as the two men struggled, but it was clear George had greater strength. The old man struggled longer than Chris would have thought possible considering his wiry frame. The gun discharged and blew a hole in the roof. White dust rained down on their heads. George wrenched the gun free from the old man, causing him to fall to his knees. George levelled the gun at the old man. They both panted for breath.

  “You said you weren’t here to cause trouble,” the old man said.

  “We’re not,” George said, hesitating only a moment before handing the gun back. “We will leave, just as we said.”

  The old man took the gun, used it to push himself up onto his feet, held it tight, aiming it at each person in turn. He let it drop, pointing to the floor.

  “It makes no difference,” he said. “The zombies will get in. We’re all doomed.”

  Z-MINUS: 2 HOURS 37 MINUTES

  The landscape spread out before them to undulating horizons on every side. On one side, the rolling landscape of green where they’d come from. On the other, the blocky squares of high rise buildings. The tuft of trees surrounded them like a warm blanket, a buffer against the marauding zombies, whose bodies were writhing and pressing against the fence, their strikes jarring, the metal crying. The wind whipped Chris’s shirt loose and cracked.

  “There’s no hope for us,” the old man said.

  “I didn’t catch your name,” Chris said, offering his hand.

  “Bryan,” the old man said. “Bryan Baxter.”

  “I’m Chris Smith.”

  “Nice to meet you. Sorry about earlier. Only, we’ve been getting all types trying to break in over the past few weeks.”

  “We?”

  “My wife and I. She’s in bed. This whole apocalypse thing has really taken it out of her. Are you seriously going to try to get into Central London? There are easier ways to die, you know.”

  “I like a challenge.”

  Bryan looked out at the land stretched out before them, zombies crowded around on every side.

  “It’ll be tough all right,” he said. “I hear the army’s gunfire most every night, the flash of explosives on the horizon. Sometimes it’s so bright it’s like the sun is rising. It hasn’t died down in the past eight weeks. The beginning was the worst, seeing all those innocent people getting bitten, eaten alive and turned into those monsters. Some people I knew were brave enough to kill themselves, but most couldn’t believe it was really happening to them, and let themselves turn, hoping they were immune. We all think we’re special, don’t we? But none of us are.”

  “You don’t think there’s someone out there who’s immune?”

  “There might be. But is he or she still alive? And can they get to the right people with these creatures out to kill them? I don’t know. Our saviour is probably out there somewhere, buried under a pile of rock from a collapsed building, or his bones picked clean by a pack of zombies. But then again, I’m a pessimist.”

  “I’m sorry we brought all this down on top of you.”

  Bryan shrugged.

  “They were already there,” he said. “It was only a matter of time before they found us. That’s something I learned from my RAF days. Half the battle is knowing who the enemy is and where they are. I’d best go check on my wife.”

  Bryan nodded to George as he passed him on the stairs. George stood beside Chris at the railing.

  “How’s Maisie?” Chris said.

  “I found her a puzzle. She’s focused on that.”

  “You’re looking a bit pale yourself.”

  “Old age,” George said. “See how you do when you get to retirement age. I’ll bet you won’t be in half so good a shape. I’m too old to be doing this. I should be sat at home next to the fire with my feet up watching the telly. Not running around like a headless chicken. I’m too old to live in this world. I don’t doubt it won’t be long before I’m gone from it. And to be honest, it’ll be a relief. It’s a terrible thing, to know we no longer figure in the world, to know that we don’t have a place.”

  George looked out at the view and heard the rhythmic clanging of the fence like a robot’s heartbeat. He let out a sigh.

  “We can't stay here,” he said.

  “If you’ve got a plan on how to get out of here I’d love to hear it.”

  “You should enjoy the rest of the time your daughter has. You’ve done well but you'll never make it in time.”

  “I’m not going to exchange the rest of Maisie’s life for the next few minutes.”

  “A few minutes are better than nothing, aren’t they? They’re never going to stop, are they?”

  “Doesn’t look that way,” Chris said.

  “Have you got a plan?”

  “No,” Chris said, shaking his head. “I don’t know how we’re going to get out of here. All I care about now is getting Maisie to that research centre on time. We’re so close. These fences are going to break and they’re going to descend on us like a tidal wave.”

  “I could make a distraction,” George said. “Then you could get Maisie to the research centre.”

  “We could never get past them all.”

  “That’s true. Especially with you the way you are now.”

  Chris turned to George.

  “What do you mean?” he said.

  “In the zompit, on the road, against the Reavers. You wouldn’t hit any of them. How far do you think you’re going to get without being able to do that?”

  Chris leaned on the railing, looking down at the ground below.

  “I grew up seeing the aggression inside you,” George said. “You did your best to hide it but I saw it anyway, because I noticed that same mask on some of my own boys. But yours was different, like it was white-hot and bubbling just beneath the surface. My boys were always fighting, with each other, with others, but you, you kept it bottled up just for the ring, and that’s what made you dangerous. I don’t mind te
lling you I was scared. I didn’t want my boy to go into the ring with you. I’d seen what you’d done to the other fighters. I didn’t want the same fate for my boy.

  “So, I confessed my feelings to my son who took it as a personal slight, as if I thought he couldn’t take you. He wouldn’t listen. I may have even pushed him further into the ring. But today when you were in the zompit fighting for your life I saw the same rage inside you, bubbling up, but never quite spilling over the edge. If, when you and your daughter’s life are on the line, you do not strike out, when will you?”

  Chris shifted uncomfortably.

  “I used to feel like there was a monster inside of me,” he said. “Something waiting to break free, and whenever I got in the ring I felt like I could unleash it and let it do what it needed and I would be all right again for another few months, and then I would have to unleash it again. If I didn’t, it threatened to consume me and take over. It was always going to spill over, but at least in the ring I could let it go, aim it, channel it at someone. And that person knew it was coming. They’d trained to deal with it, just as I had. I honestly don’t remember much about the fights, only the feeling afterwards, of relief.”

  “That night was more than just a fight, though,” George said. “It was your family versus mine. And we lost. We lost big.”

  They looked up at the night sky. It turned velvet blue, the first stars winking at them.

  “I wanted to see Tommy one last time,” George said. “To say goodbye.”

  “I guess none of us will get what we wanted.”

  “You didn’t mean to do what you did to Tommy. I know that.”

  “You don’t know what I was thinking,” Chris said. “You don’t know what kind of man I was.”

  “Maybe I did know. He was the same as you.”

  “I went into that ring to kill him,” Chris said, not taking his eyes from George. “I didn’t just want to win. I wanted to destroy him, embarrass him. And I did. But then I went too far. After that night I vowed I would never fight another man again. And to this day, I haven’t.”

  “But those things out there aren’t men. They’re zombies.”

  “Still, I see Tommy every time I make a fist.”

  Chris made a fist now, and stared down at it, touching his knuckles with his fingers.

  “What did it feel like?” Chris said. “When I took him away from you?”

  “Like the world was going to end. But you're forgetting one thing. You didn't take him away from me. He's still alive.”

  “Barely.”

  “But alive. There is a fairly distinctive dividing line between those two opposites. Dead and alive.”

  “There used to be.”

  George looked up toward the sound of something snapping in the distance.

  “They’re not really alive,” he said. “They just don't know they're dead yet.”

  “They don’t know anything. Have you ever looked into their eyes? There's nothing there.”

  “Tommy looks the same. A vegetable. But until his body gives up he's still alive to me.”

  “I spent a lot of time thinking about Tommy and what I did to him,” Chris said, “regretting what I did to him. The worst thing in the world is to have regrets. It never ends. Ever. I didn’t go into that ring to win, I went in there to destroy him. I went in there to break him. I wanted it to be known that Chris Smith beat the Jones family. That I was better than them, that all Smiths were. I went into that ring with murder in mind. Well, I didn’t kill him, but I did the next best thing.”

  “It was a tragedy all right,” George said, “but it would have been worse if you’d died. You had a family and children to take care of.”

  Chris shook his head.

  “I don’t believe that,” he said. “Not with the way I was.”

  The wind ruffled the thin strands of white hair on George’s huge head.

  “Do you remember that time you came to our place?” he said. “And you called all my sons out to fight you? I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t. You’d obviously had a right skin full.”

  Chris shook his head.

  “No,” he said.

  “You came to our land, screaming and hollering and swearing at us. It was all I could do to keep the boys from going outside to beat you to death. But they’re good boys, and they listened. I went out to speak with you and told you to go home. I could see then that you were hurt, in pain. So I told you to go, leave, and to never come back. You might not have been so fortunate next time if I wasn’t there.”

  Chris shook his head.

  “I don’t remember that,” he said.

  “It happened. And so did the fight. But one of these days you’re going to have to put it behind you and fight. For Maisie’s sake.”

  Chris headed for the door. He stopped and turned.

  “He was the best I ever fought,” he said. “I wanted you to know that. It could have gone either way.”

  “But it didn’t. You won.”

  There was the crunch of metal in the middle distance, and Chris went inside.

  Z-MINUS: 2 HOURS 23 MINUTES

  Chris descended the stairs, deep lines of concern and worry on his brow. No matter how long he thought about their position he couldn’t come up with a valid escape plan. He sat on the bottom step of the stairs, hands buried in his hair. He felt something jutting from his front pocket. He took the bottle of medicine out of his pocket. He looked up the staircase and along the hall, finding himself alone.

  He unscrewed the cap. The scent wafted up from the bottle and tickled his nose, making it itch. His hands shook and his lips felt dry. He wet them with the tip of his tongue. He put the bottle to his lips, but paused when he heard voices coming from the living room. He screwed the cap back on the bottle and moved to stand beside the door frame.

  “Enjoying the puzzle?” Bryan said.

  “Yes, thank you,” Maisie said.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “A puzzle?”

  “I mean what the picture is of?”

  “An aeroplane?”

  “What kind of plane?”

  Chris heard the rustle of Maisie’s clothes as she shrugged.

  “It’s called a light aircraft. Designed to carry two people and fly them around over a short distance.”

  “It can fly?”

  “Short distances, yes.”

  “But it looks so small…”

  “You’re small, but I bet you could cover a long distance, if you wanted.”

  “If I could, I would go travel the world,” Maisie said.

  “Would you?” Bryan said, his voice filling with genuine interest. “Where would you go first?”

  “Rome.”

  “Rome is a wonderful city. Lots of history and culture.”

  “That’s why we wanted to go.”

  “We?”

  George came down the stairs. Chris gestured for him to be quiet. George joined him beside the door.

  “Mum and me,” Maisie said. “To see all the old buildings.”

  “Maybe you’ll get to go there one day.”

  Chris entered the room and found Bryan sitting beside Maisie, both of them perched on the edge of their seats over the puzzle.

  “How’s the puzzle coming along?” Chris said.

  “It’s good,” Maisie said. “It’s a light aeroplane.”

  “Aircraft,” Bryan said.

  “Shame it’s only a picture.”

  Maisie looked at her hands, curled up slightly at the fingers, into claws. Her eyes were wide and big and shimmered with tears. She relaxed her hands. The tendons no longer stood out on them, and they were her hands again, soft and pale.

  “I don’t want to be one of them,” she said. “I don’t want to be a zombie.”

  “Sh-sh,” Chris said, brushing her hair. “You won’t be. I promise.”

  Bryan sighed.

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to come to this decision,” he said. “It’s been hard to realise
some obvious truths.”

  “What are you talking about?” Chris said.

  “I have a way to get you all out of here.”

  “How?”

  “Follow me.”

  Bryan led them out the back door and toward the barn at the back of the property.

  “I served in the Royal Air Force for many years,” he said. “I was an engineer, rebuilding the planes, putting them together, making sure they ran as efficiently as possible. A lot of the machines I worked on were old, so I had to keep them up to date. Bad mouth the RAF as much as you like, but we have some of the best-trained engineers in the world.”

  “What’s this got to do with us getting through the zombie horde?” George said.

  “Nothing,” Brian said. “But it has a lot to do with you going over them.”

  “Over them?” Chris said. “What do you mean?”

  “What if you could fly? Then you could get your girl somewhere safe, couldn’t you? Get her to this cure of yours?”

  “Yes, I suppose. But how exactly are we going to fly?”

  “My wife and I always planned to go travel the world together in our retirement. Our goal was to go to every country before we died. We were going to begin in the poorer countries and go to the developed ones last – should we have need to go to a modern hospital. But the cost of flights would have been too prohibitive. So, I started a side project. We were about to leave when this all kicked off, and we never got the chance.”

  The barn creaked and groaned against the wind, sounding as if it might give up the ghost. Bryan reached up into the darkness and pulled on something Chris couldn’t see. A dull shade of yellow enveloped the barn, making the shadows dance. Bryan raised his arm to stay the swaying light bulb.

  Before them sat something Chris had ever only seen in James Bond films. It had two seats, one in front of the other, and a wide wingspan.

  “It’s a light aircraft!” Maisie said.

  “That’s right,” Bryan said.